Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are...That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. - John 17:11b, 21

Saturday, April 5, 2014

A
couple of days ago, whilst browsing the internet, I came upon a new defense of
Peter Lampe's, From Paul to Valentinus, by Brandon Addison, a conservative, Reformed gent. Brandon's apologia was, interestingly enough, posted as a
"Guest Author" in a recent thread at the conservative Catholic site, Called
to Communion - Reformation Meets Rome. [LINK
TO THREAD.]

Back
on August 27, 2010, I began a series of threads (link
to all 10 related threads) that exposed certain weaknesses in Lampe's
position. I also brought into question the use of Lampe by some conservative,
Reformed Christians as a polemical tool against the Catholic Church. With that
said, I am a bit surprised to find yet another conservative, Reformed Christian
defending Lampe.

A
couple of folk have raised some excellent questions concerning the use of Lampe
(and other liberal, critical scholars who side with Lampe on a number of
points) in the combox of the thread; see the follow links for two of their
cogent posts:

Now,
it has been awhile since I last read Lampe (and a number of other critical
scholars that Brandon has brought into the mix), but I was able to detect some
highly suspect aspects in Brandon's apologia. From Brandon's opening
article/post we read:

In my own investigation of
this issue I was pressed to look at multiple modern critics of the consensus:
Bernard Green and Chrys Caragounis. The arguments of earlier writers like Felix
Cirlot and Gregory Dix have been judged as deficient and dated by modern
scholars. These men also do not interact with the broader argument of
fractionation (arguing against Lampe or Brent) and therefore are not in the
scope of this discussion. As such, I won’t interact with them explicitly,
though my exegetical work in the Fathers and the Scriptures offers an
alternative to their positions.

13. Finally, it was sad to
see such a dismissal of Cirlot and Dix. These men were brilliant scholars, and
just because they are not taken seriously by modern academics (if that is even
universally true) is no reason to dismiss them out of hand. The vast bulk of
evangelical biblical scholarship could easily be thrown into the trash bin on
the same grounds. You should know better.

I
totally agree with Dr. Owen here, and would add that it is not some defective
scholarship on the part of men like Felix Cirlot and Gregory Dix that has led
to their neglect by the majority of modern, critical, liberal scholars like
Lampe, but rather, it is their rejection of certain presuppositions held by
Lampe and his guild which has precipitated such neglect. (I wonder if Brandon
has even read the contributions of Cirlot and Dix.)

Even
more troubling for me is Brandon's assessment of Dr. Robert Lee Williams
monograph, Bishop
Lists. Once again, from Brandon's opening post we read:

One final scholar bears
mention in this discussion of dissent to the academic guild and that is Robert
Williams. Williams states that the episcopate probably originated first in
Jerusalem and developed in other areas but Williams is clear to state that
notions of episcopacy found in Ignatius does not approximate anything close to
Apostolic Succession. Williams states:

“The succession of bishops
arose in Rome from Jewish Christian interpretation of apostolic plans in
reaction to erosion of established presbyterial authority. These developments
set the stage for the initial use of succession lists in internal crises rather
than in dialogue with Greco-Roman Society."

In addition to affirming
what was argued regarding Hegesippus, Williams states that the monarchical
episcopate developed from the erosion of presbyterial authority. Once again,
William’s conclusions are not conducive to the RCC’s claims and are favorable
to the thesis of this paper.

Brandon's
isolated quote fails to capture the major import of Dr. Williams broader
assessments which in fact do support something, "close to Apostolic
Succession". Note the following:

The New Testament,
Ignatius, and 1 Clement contributed to the ecclesiastical concept of
apostolic succession of monepiscopacy in diverse ways. They contain no complete
concept of such and no bishop list. They record in separate developments the
emergence of all the constituents of the concept. (Page 45)

The "erosion of
presbyterial authority" is not what Brandon seems to think it is (a series
of events that precipitated a post-apostolic development of the monepiscopacy),
but rather, it was events that actually occured in the apostolic age, giving
rise to the implementation of the monepiscopacy by the apostles themselves.
Please note the following:

...Paul seems to
anticipate defections (v. 30). We therefore conclude that Paul promoted the
governing by overseers in some congregations threatened with disunification
from external and internal troublemakers, from Paul's viewpoint, but that these
overseers were not necessarily submitted to without reservation by their
congregations.

The subsequent situation
in Titus seems to mark a further stage of church leadership, conceivably
developing from such difficulties as were anticipated in Acts 20. Paul
has left Titus in Crete with the responsibility of appointing
"elders" πρεσβύτεροι"in
every city" (1:5). In
this context, then, a list of qualifications for "an overseer, as God's
steward" follows (vv. 7-9).
Campbell proposes that this overseer is an elder appointed to oversee all the
house churches in a city, a
monepiskopos.
From
those elders in each city, each of whom oversees a church in his or her household, Titus is to choose one as overseer of all the congregations inthe city.
This overseer will
be required in
each city
to teach the apostle's doctrine and to
defend it in the face of adversartes. Such a need is envisioned in
light of
difficulties which have developed similar to the first of the two anticipated
in Acts 20:28-30. (page 51)

And a bit later:

Such citywide
responsibility is a dramatic development in the role of overseeing. It involves
a single Christian leader in a city, suggestive of the second century monepiskopos in Ignatius's letters.
Furthermore, it indicates appointment of the overseer by one with apostolic
authority, albeit delegated. Such apostolic initiative suggests apostolic
succession of bishops, the terminology of which emerges at the end of the first
century in 1 Clement. (Page 53)

"Such apostolic
initiative suggests apostolic succession of bishops"; that Brandon
overlooked this in his reading of Dr. Williams raises some concerns on my part.

Before ending, I would
like to share a few thoughts on the following from Brandon's opening post:

In summation, modern scholarship from Allen Brent
to Robert Williams agrees that the existence of a monarchical episcopate
developed in the second century. There are virtually no scholars in the extant
literature who dispute this. I’ve encountered exactly one academic article that
suggests that there was a monarchical bishop in Rome in the first century and
that article is answered deftly by Francis Sullivan.

A couple of items: first,
I have already noted that Dr. Williams does not agree, "that the existence of a monarchical episcopate
developed in the second century", but rather, sees its beginning with the
apostle Paul (he also adds James, the brother of Jesus), in the first century;
and second, Brandon has overstated his belief that, "[t]here are virtually
no scholars in the extant literature who dispute this", for in addition to
Williams, I know of three more who do in fact "dispute this".
Interestingly enough, Brandon himself mentions two of them, David Albert Jones
and Oswald Sobrino, with the third being Michael C. McGuckian.

I would like to end here, leaving open the
possibility of another thread(s) to address some more of the issues raised by
Brandon (and the critical, liberal scholars he invokes).

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Getting History Right

The Reformers unequivocally rejected the teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church. This left open the question of who should interpret Scripture. The Reformation was not a struggle for the right of private judgement. The Reformers feared private judgement almost as much as did the Catholics and were not slow to attack it in its Anabaptist manifestation. The Reformation principle was not private judgement but the perspicuity of the Scriptures. Scripture was ‘sui ipsius interpres’ and the simple principle of interpreting individual passages by the whole was to lead to unanimity in understanding. This came close to creating anew the infallible church…It was this belief in the clarity of Scripture that made the early disputes between Protestants so fierce. This theory seemed plausible while the majority of Protestants held to Lutheran or Calvinist orthodoxy but the seventeenth century saw the beginning of the erosion of these monopolies. But even in 1530 Casper Schwenckfeld could cynically note that ‘the Papists damn the Lutherans; the Lutherans damn the Zwinglians; the Zwinglians damn the Anabaptists and the Anabaptists damn all others.’ By the end of the seventeenth century many others saw that it was not possible on the basis of Scripture alone to build up a detailed orthodoxy commanding general assent. (A.N.S. Lane, “Scripture, Tradition and Church: An Historical Survey”, Vox Evangelica, Volume IX – 1975, pp. 44, 45 – bold emphasis mine.) [http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/vox/vol09/scripture_lane.pdf]

And this one thing at least is certain; whatever history teaches, whatever it omits, whatever it exaggerates or extenuates, whatever it says and unsays, at least the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there were a safe truth, it is this…To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant. – John Henry Newman